Sticky Notes
by flipomatic
Summary: Eli scrutinized the room carefully, and paused when she reached the mirror. It felt like her heart skipped a beat at the realization. A purple note in the shape of a heart sat where the blue note had been before. Eli didn't recognize the handwriting. It read: thats ok! are you feeling better :? College AU, NozoEli
1. First Contact

Author Note: The idea for this came from some of my own experiences in college, along with a suggestion from my friend bax. I plan on making this multiple chapters, though I'm not sure how many.

Eli lives in a dorm room that is connected to another dorm room by a bathroom. Two college students live in each room, and all four of them share the bathroom. The doors lock from the outside only. In the rooms, the beds are lofted, which means they are basically bunk beds with only the top bunk in place.

* * *

Before Eli opened her eyes, she could already feel her head throbbing. Each beat of her heart sent blood pounding through her skull. She started to open her eyes, but screwed them shut against the harsh light pouring in her dorm room's one window. For some reason the blinds were pulled wide open, though there was only one person to blame for that.

"Honoka," Eli groaned, her own voice echoing painfully in her ears. She raised one hand to cover her strained eyes. "Close the window." Eli counted the pulsing of her brain while waiting for a response; she made it to 30 before she realized no one was responding. Slowly rotating her head towards the center of the room, Eli peeked down through the cracks of her eyelids.

Honoka wasn't there. From her vantage point of lying prone in her lofted bed, it seemed like Eli was alone in the dorm. With another groan, she mustered all her strength to kick her blanket off, sit half way up, and crawl extremely slowly towards the ladder on her loft, which was on the end of the bed. She was careful not to hit her head on the ceiling; a concussion would only make her hangover worse. The motion brought a wave of nausea to her throat, but managed not to barf.

By some miracle, Eli made it down the ladder and onto solid ground. As she suspected, her roommate Honoka was nowhere to be found. Eli glared at the alarm clock as if it could change her situation, and resisted another groan when she saw it was already 12:24. She'd slept practically her whole Sunday away.

After leaning over, and immediately regretting it, to check if the light was on in the bathroom, Eli knocked gently on the door before unlocking it and entering the conjoining room. The door on the other side was closed, and Eli could see some light through the bottom crack. She stepped over to the sink, turning it on and splashing some cold water on her face. It brought her a small amount of relief, but wasn't enough to fight off her migraine.

Eli lifted her face to see just how disheveled she looked in the mirror, but stopped when something light blue caught her eye.

About half way up the mirror, right near the middle, a blue sticky note stuck to the surface. Much to Eli's dismay, she recognized the handwriting. The note read:

 _sorry its so gross in here :( i feel soooooo sick right now :( :( :( :(_

There was no doubt about it, that handwriting was her own. Eli glanced over at the toilet, but it looked about as clean as it normally did. If it was clean then that meant… Eli didn't want to think too hard about it. Besides, her brain was only functioning at about 25 percent capacity right now.

With a sigh she reached up and pulled the note off the mirror. At least drunk her was considerate, she thought as she re-stuck the blue square to the right edge of the surface. If there did turn out to be a pool of vomit somewhere, at least she left a note. Hopefully her suitemates wouldn't be too mad.

With that done, Eli flicked the light off and vacated the bathroom. She relocked her side of the suite, and looked in her desk for some pain killers. After a few moments of digging she found some ibuprofen, which she consumed eagerly. After that, Eli took a sip of water from a bottle she had on her desk, and started the laborious climb back up to her lofted bed. She made it somehow without vomiting, and collapsed back into hungover slumber.

* * *

For the next few days the blue note remained up in the bathroom. Eli ignored it whenever she went in there, but Honoka always had a comment when she noticed its presence. Honoka joked about how she never actually found that mess, and how their suitemates never seemed to care about keeping the bathroom clean anyway.

Three days after the initial note placement, on Wednesday evening, Eli was studying in her dorm room. Honoka was supposed to be studying as well, but she spent far more time playing games on her phone. She also took relatively frequent bathroom breaks to aid in procrastination. Eli was busy copying some definitions from a textbook when Honoka emerged from one such break.

"I don't know how you did it," the bubbly girl chirped as she plopped down at her desk, grabbing Eli's attention. "That's some magic trick."

What was Honoka babbling about this time? "What do you mean?" Eli looked up from her notes to ask, turning slightly towards her roommate.

"You made it purple somehow., without even going in there." Honoka said as if that would help, while looking at Eli expectantly. Eli inhaled deeply, trying to formulate a response of some kind. She had no idea what Honoka was actually trying to say. The best way to find out would be to just look in the bathroom herself, since Honoka didn't seem like she was going to continue speaking.

Since Honoka had just come out, Eli was able to enter the bathroom without having to wait. When she turned the light on, it looked the same as it normally did. Eli scrutinized the room carefully, and paused when she reached the mirror. It felt like her heart skipped a beat at the realization. A purple note in the shape of a heart sat where the blue note had been before. Eli didn't recognize the handwriting. It read:

 **thats ok! are you feeling better :?**

For a second, all Eli could do was blink at it. Someone had replied to her note. A person had entered the shared bathroom, seen the note, and felt concerned enough to write a reply. That was literally the last thing she expected to happen. With a sharp inhale Eli retreated back to her dorm room. She left the light on in the bathroom and made sure the door was closed before speaking, since her suitemates would be able to hear her if the bathroom door was open.

"Honoka," she said slowly and steadily. "Are you pranking me?" It had happened before, more than once.

"What! Of course not!" Honoka insisted with a pout. "Not since last month!" Ah yes, the fake spider in the fridge had been last month's delightful prank.

"Then who wrote that note?" Eli crossed her arms, leaning against the bathroom door.

"It wasn't you?" Honoka's eyes widened, and she sounded so surprised Eli decided to believe her.

"No." Eli frowned. "It must've been our suitemates." That was odd though, because they weren't close to their suitemates. The two girls on the other side had roomed together intentionally, while both Eli and Honoka had roomed blind. They'd introduced themselves at the beginning of the year, but Eli forgot their names.

Honoka's eyebrows knight together thoughtfully. "Hmmmm." She tilted her head to one side. "You should respond." Was the conclusion she came to.

Eli wasn't sure she agreed with that idea. "I dunno." She tried to think of a way to explain her hesitation, but struggled to put it into words.

"C'mon, it'll be fun!" Honoka jumped up for emphasis and leverage. "Besides, we don't eeeever talk to them, so this is a chance to make new friends." She insisted, inching into Eli's personal space.

"Fine," Eli acquiesced, leaning away from Honoka. "Just this once though." She stepped over to her desk and grabbed the pad of blue sticky notes along with a pencil. She gave it a few seconds of thought, and then scribbled:

 _I'm feeling much better, thank you!_

That was good enough, she decided, and re-entered the bathroom to place it on the mirror. Since the other person took the original note, Eli figured she should take the purple one. She peeled the heart shaped note off and replaced it with her response.

Eli only looked back once as she flipped the light off and left the bathroom. Once the door was shut and locked, she looked for a spot on her desk to put the purple heart. She ended up sticking it to a piece of loose-leaf paper, and putting in one of the desk drawers.

"Done." She said to Honoka, who shot back a thumbs up in response. There was no way someone would respond to that note, and even if they did Eli was determined not to respond again.

She planned to stick to that decision.

* * *

Eli was wrong.

A few days later, she found a new purple note plastered where hers had been. It said:

 **im glad! the cards told me but i wanted to confirm it :D**

Eli couldn't help but write back:

 _What do you mean by the cards?_


	2. Deliberation

Author Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. I know this one is short, but it ends in a good spot.

* * *

 **i asked the tarot cards about your recovery and i pulled the upright star**

 _I've never heard of the star card. Is that a good thing?_

 **absolutely! it means you can achieve anything!**

* * *

Over the next week, Eli exchanged a few more notes with the mystery person. They talked about tarot cards, which was a topic Eli didn't know much about. Despite that, she still felt engaged with the conversation. Even as she enjoyed talking with this person, she still wondered about the identity of her correspondent. She wanted to know, but had some reservations about asking directly and decided not to at first.

A whole two weeks after the first note was placed, Eli met Honoka and her friends at the dorm cafeteria for lunch. As students who lived on campus, they had already purchased meal plans, which made the caf a convenient place to eat. Honoka loved it in particular because she could eat until she passed out. Her friends, who she went to high school with, helped carry her back to the dorm room when that happened.

Eli didn't have to worry about that today, since Honoka was more focused on discussing the mystery note leaver than she was on indulging in mountains of food.

"So I found out a little more about our suitemates." Honoka had a notebook open on the table in front of her, though Eli couldn't read it upside down.

"You mean you snooped on them." To Eli's left, Umi sat with her arms crossed. Among Honoka and her friends, Umi was by far Eli's favorite person. She behaved rationally at all times and wasn't insane.

Honoka ignored her friend's interruption. "Their names are Nico Yazawa and Maki Nishikino. They both have a performance major of some kind." She emphasized the point by gesturing to the information with one finger.

"Oh!" Honoka's other friend, Kotori, chimed in. "Nico is in my writing class." All freshmen at the school were required to take a general writing course, regardless of their major. Eli's was extremely boring and consisted of writing a few short essays.

"Have you spoken with her?" Eli asked, perking up at the scent of a lead. With a shake of her head, Kotori immediately stifled that hope.

"Did they room blind?" Umi redirected the conversation back to Honoka's snooping.

"Nope." Honoka flipped to the next page of her notebook. "They came from the same high school and roomed together at the beginning of the year." A grin spread slowly on Honoka's face. "And now one or both of them are flirting with Eli via post it note."

"I'm not flirting!" A flush rose to Eli's cheeks as she protested. "We're just talking." She insisted, but it didn't affect Honoka's smirk.

"Have you tried asking who it is?" Umi had one hand raised to her chin thoughtfully.

A sigh escaped Eli's lips as she turned away from the excitable teen, who was now waggling her eyebrows. "I've thought about it, but haven't asked." She looked between the other three as she spoke. "It's just, there must be some reason why they didn't introduce themself."

"What if it's a guy?" Eli raised one eyebrow at Honoka's question. "And he's secretly living with them or something?"

"That's unlikely." Umi countered the point. "Since your floor is all girls, someone would've noticed him by now."

Honoka visibly deflated. "Yeah, I guess." She pouted down at her hands.

"You really should ask." Umi's gaze was stronger than Eli expected and she found herself shrinking back slightly.

"I agree." Kotori backed her friend up, adding to the pressure.

Eli felt like a heat lamp was pointing her way as the two stared and waited for a response. "I'll think about it," she ended up saying. That seemed to be good enough for the time being, and the conversation soon drifted to other topics. Honoka had an exciting story to tell about her encounters with the local squirrels.

Eli listened quietly, but mostly started to think.

* * *

 _I'm majoring in business, so I have a lot of classes on the north side of campus._

 **im in performing arts wayyy on the other side :/**

* * *

Though Eli devoted a significant amount of time to thinking, she struggled to actually come to a decision. She sat alone in her dorm room, turning the same thoughts over in her head.

Part of it was a list of everything she knew about the mystery person. The first thing was that the person liked tarot cards, and used them on a regular basis. They were probably a freshman, female, and a performing arts major. They liked to use emoticons and didn't capitalize the beginning of sentences. They usually took about three days to respond, which suggested to Eli that they might not actually live next door. That was all Eli knew about them, and she churned it through her mind over and over again.

She also knew that both of her suitemates were in the performing arts field, but that didn't really help. They roomed together, so was it possible that they were dating? She had no way of answering that question, but none of the data Honoka gathered suggested that.

A couple of choices she had would be to just carry on without asking about the person's identity, or to stop replying altogether. Eli didn't like either of those options. She wanted to keep talking to this person, but the ambiguity was a problem. Looking out into the unknown and only seeing darkness frightened her. Even a little more information about the person would be enough.

So Eli came back to that same question; what was her next step? She had to ask something, but what? If she asked for their identity outright, there was a high chance the person would stop responding. They wanted to be anonymous in the first place. There had to be a way to find some information out without asking too directly. Eli looked at the most recent note, which she received earlier that day, and read it again.

Suddenly, as if struck by a beam of inspiration, Eli realized how she could phrase it. There was a way to spin this and ask her question without too much risk. It was a little awkward, but it might be enough.

Eli jotted down her idea, placed it on the mirror, crossed her fingers, and hoped.

* * *

 **i often give predictions in the caf, upon request :p**

 _I eat in the caf here too. Do you happen to live in this building?_


	3. The Store

Author Note: Sorry this took so long. I was busy with the live two weeks ago and the live viewing last weekend. If you were in Fairfax on Saturday, I was the girl in the last row screaming Ainya's name.

* * *

 **nope ;) but i have friends that do**

* * *

Three days after she placed the note, when Eli saw the reply, she felt her pulse kick up a notch. So the person didn't live next door, but was in fact friends with the two girls who lived in the suite, Nico and Maki. That meant they could be anybody. Odds were that they went to high school with the pair, but that was merely speculation. They could've met at college or anywhere really.

As Eli grabbed her sticky notes to formulate a reply, she noticed that the pad of paper was abnormally thin. In fact, when she peeled up the page to see how many were left, she only had one. Though she hadn't had quite a full pad of paper when this all started, Eli still hadn't expected to run out so soon.

The other person usually took about three days to reply, so Eli would have time to find some more sticky notes. For the time being, she used her last one to respond.

 _Sometimes I go to West Hall, since I have class near there and the food is wayyy better than here._

Once the note was peeled off, there was only the small piece of paper from the bottom remaining. Eli dropped it in the trash, making a mental note to locate more sticky notes in the next few days.

* * *

A mere twenty-four hours later, Eli got back to her dorm from class. After depositing her backpack on the ground and greeting Honoka, she checked the bathroom and entered to relieve herself. As she washed her hands, she expected to see her blue note still up on the mirror.

She inhaled sharply when her eyes met purple instead.

 **i agree that the west hall is good but i bet you the east hall is better!**

Eli dried her hands on a towel before raising one to touch the note. She closed her fingers around it to peel it off, but stopped mid motion. There were no more sticky notes in her desk. She had no way of replacing this note, even if she were to remove it.

For a moment, she stood frozen in that pose, silently weighing her options. She could wait and look for some sticky notes tomorrow, or she could try to find some today. If she waited, the person could come back and see that she hadn't replied. That would surely be disappointing to them, which she wanted to avoid. It wasn't that late in the afternoon, so it wasn't like stores were closed. Honoka might've had some as well. Eli could definitely find sticky notes that day.

Bearing that thought, Eli relinquished her grip on the purple reply and vacated the bathroom. She shut the door gingerly and made sure it was locked.

"Hey Honoka," Eli tried to sound casual as she got her roommates attention. Honoka had been reading something on her computer, but she looked up when called. "Do you happen to have any sticky notes?"

The other college student wrinkled her nose as she thought. After a moment, she shook her head. "No, I don't."

"Crap." That was one idea that wouldn't work. What were her other options again?

"Don't you have your own?" Honoka asked curiously.

Eli sighed. "I'm out." She ran one hand through her hair, bushing her bangs back from her forehead. She could go to the store; it was still early so the store should've been open.

"Gave too many of them to your mystery person?" Honoka guessed accurately, and Eli nodded. "You'll just have to get more then."

"I know." Eli muttered, before raising her voice to ask. "Do you think they sell them at the student store?" That was her best shot at getting some quickly.

Honoka shrugged. "Probably."

"It's only a fifteen minute walk." Eli snatched up her keys and turned towards the door. "I'll be back later."

"Good luuuck!" Honoka called in a sing song voice, following it up with a laugh as Eli closed the dorm room door behind her. She locked up and set off. The student store was located about half a mile away, and would only take fifteen minutes to walk to.

Those fifteen minutes felt like an hour. All Eli wanted to do was leave a response to the sticky note. When she thought about the other person coming back and not seeing a response, she felt a pain in her stomach. The other person might even stop responding if Eli didn't respond fast enough, she told herself as she walked. Of course, that wasn't the most rational thought, but something about this other person made Eli irrational. She just couldn't leave it for tomorrow.

With that thought in mind, Eli spotted the classroom building that housed the students store. She upped her speed a tiny bit, and weaved around other college students to reach the door. Once inside the building, she walked over to and entered the store.

It was a generic college store. They sold textbooks, notebooks, folders, spirit wear, and many other college related items. The most important item, for Eli at least, was the office supplies. They were located in the back of the store, and she tried not to seem impatient as she weaved her way there.

On the back wall of the store, lined up in a neat row near the floor, were a few different choices of sticky notes. They had regular square ones, along with a few different shapes. Eli crouched down to get a better look.

Of the varied shapes, there were hearts, music notes, and stars. They came in a few different colors, but the only one Eli cared about was light blue. Luckily, they carried all shapes in her color. She picked up the square ones, weighing the pad in her hand. It felt familiar and safe in her palm.

Eli almost went with it, but something about the music note stickies stopped her. It reminded her of long hours spent learning to dance and performances on a well-lit stage, of a childhood she'd long left behind. She gently grasped the oddly shaped sticky notes, noting that, though their weight was about the same, they felt strange in her hand. They felt nostalgic; they felt like risk.

This was silly, she scolded herself. Who cared what shape the sticky notes were? The other person probably wouldn't even notice. It wouldn't make a difference if the shape was square or of an eighth note.

Even if it didn't matter, she still needed to decide.

She took a deep breath and made a choice.

When Eli emerged from the store, she clutched the music note sticky notes tightly in her hand. If asked, she wouldn't have been able to explain why she chose them. She just did.

The walk back to her dorm felt quicker than the walk to the store, though in reality it was the same length. As she pushed to door to the room open, Honoka looked over at her expectantly.

"Did you get 'em?" Honoka asked. Eli nodded, and held up the acquired item. She sat down at her desk for a moment to pen a response to the message. Even without looking, she still remembered what it said.

 _I may have to take you up on that, I really like the pizza there. :)_

That was good for a response, Eli decided, and she peeled the new note off the stack. She checked the bathroom, saw it was empty, and inched in to make the switch. Once she had the purple note, she placed it with the growing collection in her desk.

Honoka had been watching the whole thing silently, but wasn't able to maintain that standard. "How do you stand doing this?" She frowned in an unusual way, arms crossed over her chest. "I can't stand not knowing who it is!"

"It's fine this way." Eli said placatingly, shutting her desk drawer with a snap. "They'll tell me when they're ready." Her argument sounded hollow, even to her own ears.

"If you say so." Honoka still didn't seem satisfied, but she dropped the topic. "Kotori and Umi are coming by for dinner in an hour, you gonna eat with us?"

"Sure."


End file.
